Darkest before the dawn

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2am. That darkling hour, where morning has yet to make an appearance, but night is silently sliding by on velvet-black slippers. Where everything hushes and falls silent, save the creaking of the house as it settles around you.

At 2am nothing moves. Even the air is still as it folds around you like a blanket.

Your demons come out to play at 2am. They slink out from under the bed, slide sly and sideways from the wardrobe, slither under the door like smoke. The hurts and lies and mistruths you’ve dealt in, the things you have done and failed to do. Your demons love 2am. They smell vulnerability like a shark smells blood. You are at your most vulnerable at 2am. Your demons know that. Why else would they come out?

Your fears come out at 2am. Fears of mortality and failure. Fears of growing old badly, or worse still not growing old at all. Fears and demons work together. They surround your bed and press in, suffocating you.

And so you toss and turn, as everyone around you sleeps peacefully. You wonder “What are they dreaming about so peacefully? What worlds are they building, what are they experiencing behind the stillness of their rest?” Everyone around you is silent, the only sound is their breathing.

2am is the worst time - you’ve lost the glow of the afternoon and you don’t yet have the promise of the morning sun. Everything is at its lowest ebb.

So how do you get past 2am? Well you just wait. If our illness has taught us anything it’s the benefit of patience. Of being able to wait. Because we have to. Every day we wait. We wait for improvement in our health. We wait for breakthroughs in medical science. We wait to get our lives back. We wait to reclaim “us”. We wait for that brand new day.

So if it’s 2am and you are fighting your demons, be kind to yourself. Read. Make a cup of herbal tea. Just relax. Demon fighting is hard work. It takes much of our energy if we let it. Don’t let it. Save your energy for the fights you have to fight.

Soon the dawn will come. You will need your energy for the demons you can see, feel and touch. The demon virus that lives inside us all. Fight that demon, not the invisible ones.